Paying 50x ARR is cool once more
Bloomberg reported this morning that Adobe was getting close to buying Figma, a former startup and private-market unicorn within the design house, for round $20 billion. The Photoshop-maker then confirmed the cope with a launch and a brief investor presentation. TechCrunch’s coverage of the announcement is here.
Shares of Adobe had been off greater than 15% following the information.
The transaction is huge in greenback phrases, making it price our whereas to unpack. Under we’ve collected info on the scale of Figma in income phrases, thought of its money circulation place, and chatted by what the transaction might imply for different firms of comparable dimension which can be ready out the present IPO drought.
Earlier than we do all that actual work, nonetheless, can I simply say that I’m oddly bummed by the deal?
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Figma is a considerably traditional startup and enterprise capital success story. Following a seed spherical again in 2013, Figma attracted common exterior investments by a mid-2021 Collection E price $200 million that valued the software program upstart at round $10 billion, per Crunchbase data. At one level, promoting for a mere double of a last enterprise spherical can be a smaller exit worth than what buyers would have hoped once they executed the funding. However! A doubling of a 2021-era valuation in 2022 is an enormous win, given how far the valuation bands for know-how firms have shifted within the final 12 months.
